I'm just getting in this, but are you sure it is the standards that make the
education. It doesn't sound to me like the problem in the south is
standards. I can't believe that we can honestly believe that the FED
government would do a better job of the states in setting standards. Most
standards are copies from one another. It sound like you don't have as
much faith in national standards as you think that having them will give
some pot of money from the Federal gov't. There is no pot of money. It
comes with a high price tag.

Should't we at least consider having a national discussion about what
knowledge we value? Coming from the South and knowing about the history of
public education in the South in comparison to say, the Mid-Atlantic states,
I am cynical about depending on state politicians to improve and/or maintain
education. Georgia arm wrestles every year with Mississippi, Alabama, and
South Carolina for the bottom four ranking order. I believe that a lot of
our struggles originate from our shared history. Southern states were the
last to offer public education and we have a checkered past when it comes to
inclusion and realistic funding. The federal government interventions have
sometimes offered the only relief from injustice. Hopefully, talk about
national standards will include a broader discussion of how the outdated way
we pay for education, i.e. through property taxes, means that those who need
the most will always get the least.

The problem with national standards is that they become the primary means of
evaluating performance by means of multiple-choice assessments. Linda
herself is one of the leading opponents of such assessments, as evidenced by
her espousal of assessment practices elsewhere that shed light on the
reasoning processes our students undergo. They take a lot more time to
"score" and don't lend themselves to digitalized scoring.

The federal government already has too huge of an impact on what and how
teachers should teach. The backlash to that impact is itself, IMO, a major
cause of educational failures.

In reading the article about the closing of the charter school that Stanford
and Linda Darling-Hammond ran, it seems like a good illustration of the
challenges facing educators everywhere -- systemic poverty, diversity,
limited resources, english language learning, assessments. The fact that
Linda Darling-Hammond has the President's ear and hopefully Secretary
Duncan's as well could be a really positive thing. The article said that the
schools had shown improvments, just not the dramatic leaps which observers
demand. Maybe this is a valuable "teachable" moment demonstrating that
education is a lengthy process of many steps.

I am trying to understand why the idea of national standards or a curriculum
is objectionable. I am from Georgia and I see how bogged down our state and
local governments get in the politics of curricula. We also linger towards
the bottom in national tests like the SAT. What would be so bad about having
a set standard of math objectives for each grade so that to say you
graduated from a U.S. high school means that your math education included
whatever is in the national definition? Another bonus would be that if
students have to move during their k12 career, they are ready for their new
school.

Colleagues: Here are extracts from two news stories that may be of interest.
They seem to challenge some of the more innovative actions (e.g., authentic
assessments; professional development in math) that many educational
researchers recommend to improve the nation's K-12 educational system. No
doubt these reports will be considered quite controversial! You can find
full stores on www.educationnews.org <http://www.educationnews.org/>
Tom Sticht

Posted on 4/17/2010 at www.educationnews.org

#1 Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study: Findings
After the First Year of Implementation

Results after one year of providing teachers math professional development
(PD) indicate no improvement on their students' math achievement when
compared to teachers who did not receive the study-provided PD.

#2 Obama's Linda Darling-Hammond and Her Failed School"

by Donna Garner

Early in Obama's presidency, it looked as if he was going to appoint Linda
Darling-Hammond as his Secretary of Education. Instead, Obama decided to
empower Darling-Hammond to complete the federal takeover of the public
schools by authorizing her to help develop the national tests (i.e.,
assessments). These assessments are the centerpiece in Obama's plan to put
the federal government in charge of what gets taught each day to public
school students.

By having national standards, national curriculum, national assessments, and
a national database tying students' scores directly to teachers' pay and
longevity, teachers will be forced to teach their students whatever is in
the national standards and on the national assessments.

Today we see that Linda Darling-Hammond's approach to education has failed.
The school she founded in California is to be closed because of low test
scores and lack of significant improvement.

A similar charter school (Aspire) in the same district focused on academics;
Darling-Hammond's school focused on project-based learning, subjective
assessments, portfolios, and "students' emotional and social lives."

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